Photo by Dave Roback / The RepublicanLaw enforcement officials gather outside the Chinese Massage Therapy parlor, 271 Belmont Ave. in Springfield last November.SPRINGFIELD - After a splashy series of raids at local Chinese massage parlors late last year, two city women arrested during the law enforcement blitz face only misdemeanor charges.
The owner of three massage providers in this city and Longmeadow, Xiuli Li, 48, originally was charged with maintaining a house of prostitution and employing unlicensed masseuses. An employee, Xia Huang, 49, was charged with giving unlicensed massages.
Now Li is facing a misdemeanor charge accusing her of allowing an unlicensed worker to give a massage and Huang is charged with a misdemeanor as the unlicensed employee.
Eight massage parlors across Western Massachusetts were searched by a phalanx of law enforcement agencies in November. The allegations were that the businesses were doubling as houses of ill repute and had ties to a Chinese organized crime ring out of New York.
“That’s a laughable allegation, and quite frankly a bigoted one,” Li’s lawyer, Daniel D. Kelly said.
He added that a magistrate clerk rejected charging Li with two prostitution counts during a show-cause hearing and a third sex-related charge was recently dismissed by prosecutors.